POF Auto Day a Success
Posted December 9, 2004

Close to 50 representatives from Automakers and tier 1 suppliers heard the latest developments in POF applied to automobiles. According to a report from Infineon, in Europe the number of different model cars with MOST is now up to 30 and soon to be 40 which includes all price ranges from the lowest to the highest. Infineon reported that they had shipped 11 million transceivers to BMW and over 25 Million MOST Transmitter/receivers. Speakers also announced IDB 1394 interest and demonstrations by Nissan in Japan, Renault in France and KIA in Korea. Attendees were chagrined at the lack of interest by the U.S. automakers in POF. "Based on the feedback that we received from attendees, there is a need to have more "POF AUTO DAYS" but focused on actual experiences, reliability data, service data, lessons learned, and cost information," according to Paul Polishuk of IGI, the organizers of the event.

More Comments on POF 2004
Posted November 4, 2004

Commentary from
POFTO Member Whitney White of Chromis Fiberoptics

Some thoughts:1) In the Field of perfluorinated POF, Nexans announced a very exciting connector product. This connector replaces glue with an elestomeric boot that is slid into place to secure the fiber. It's a development that makes small-core POF much easier to use.

2) We (Chromis Fiber) announced two perfluorinated fiber products for short-reach applications. One has a 50 micron core and the other has a 120 micron core.

3) For the automotive market, ASTRI demonstrated some very nice VCSEL and MSM products tha operate well at high temperature.

4) Also for the automotive market, Schott is pushing for a glass fiber bundle product as an alternative to POF for high temperature applications.


Nissan Displays 400 Mbps Capable Auto at ITS WC
Updated October 26, 2004Nissan is displaying a new prototype vehicle at this year’s 11th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems that incorporates a multimedia platform capable of showing up to 4 moving images on an onboard screen at once. The prototype is designed to explore future developments in vehicle safety equipment, convenience features and in-vehicle entertainment. The car is fitted with one monitor in the front and another in the rear seat area. Depending on the chosen mode, the front seat monitor can display up to four images at one time from seven different cameras mounted at the front, side and rear of the vehicle, giving the driver all-round visibility including blind spots. Simultaneously, the rear seat monitor can show DVD images. The multimedia capabilities are made possible by the adoption of a high-speed 1394 optical fiber network communications system which allows a data transmission rate of 400 Mbps (mega-bites per second). Whereas conventional analogue cables are only capable of transmitting one image, the optical network communications system allows the transmission of multiple images. The application of optical fiber also means that the weight of the cables can be reduced to about one-half the weight of a conventional wiring harness. The 2004 ITS World Congress, which takes place in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, will open to the public from October 19 to October 24.

Original Press Release

POF 2004 - 13th Annual International POF Conference
Updated October 12, 2004 POFTO Member and CEO of Luceat S.p.A.,

Alessandro Nocivelli
sent in the following report on POF 2004:


Luceat exhibit at POF 2004

The choice of the city for this year's POF Conference was almost obvious.
Nurenberg is the home city of the POF-Application Center, Europe's most
prestigious research institution in the field; and it's only 160km north of
Munich, home of BMW - the leader for POF usage in the automotive market.No wonder that this year's attendance was particularly high. Germany was obviously the most represented country, followed by Far East countries and other European nations.

For the first time, it was apparent to anyone that Far East is going to
become a "hot" area for POF and POF-based applications. While Japan still leads the race in terms of R&D and innovation, other countries like Corea, China and Taiwan show muscle with new PMMA-based GI-POF and POF-based devices.After years spent talking about perfluorinated GI-POF, many showed off
awesome results obtained with plain vanilla SI-POF. The Fraunhofer Institute demonstrated transmission at Gbps rates over 10m, while an European firm (Luceat, actually) introduced commercially available modules for transmitting data at up to 400m - with standard POF!A recurrent topic at every POF Conference has been the quest for the "killer application". Automotive is of course a booming market, with BMW planning to wire 1.4 million vehicles in 2005. Few benefit of this market though, with Infineon (active devices) and Gebauer & Griller (MOST cable) leading the lot.

This year, the most pronounced word at the conference has been "1394", or FireWire as Apple calls it. Domestic applications actually are a
promising market, although some technical issues have yet to be fully addressed before we can see a fully-fledged "POF house" based on this standard.

Most importantly, nobody knows whether in the end Ethernet, the standard which nobody likes and everybody uses, will win in the domestic market as well. And that has nothing to do with technical performances: it's just marketing.POF is getting stronger, and this year's conference proved it: but the pace
of growth and penetration in new markets has to increase, if we all want to succeed. It's no more the time to address technical issues, but to focus on creating working devices and proposing them to the market.Please also see Alessandro's report on flamability testing.


POF 2004 - Preliminary Photos Posted October 7, 2004 The first reports are back in from POF 2004 for in Nuremburg, and we will have a full review soon. For now here are some photo highlights:


The view from outside the conference center


Schafer exhibits new POF terminating equipment


POFTO members FO Systems and FiberFin


Infineon exhibits a BMW using POF technology

POFTO Members Report on CEDIA 2004
Posted September 15, 2004




The POFTO had a booth at CEDIA 2004 with six member companies participating

1. Fiberfin
2. Firecomms, Ltd.
3. Mitsubishi Rayon
4. Newnex
5. Information Gatekeepers Inc
6. Senko

Other literature available at the booth:

1. Asahi Glass
2. Luceat

This year's show had 25,000 attendees, up from 20,000 last year. The place was busting out at the seams with exhibitors in hallways and for the first time a substantial waiting list developed which could not be accommodated. Cedia 2005 will be in Indianapolis next year but will move to Denver for the next two years and then to Atlanta.

The POFTO booth had adequate traffic despite its location. Over 100 highly qualified leads were distributed to the participants. at the booth Fiberfin provided hands-on demonstations of connectorization, Mitsubishi showed a video POF link using 1394 and announced a HCS DVI link, Newnex had a demonstration of a POF repeater for 1394 operating at 200Mbps, and Senko had a DVI link over glass with transmitters and receivers built into the standard DVI connectors.

Other POF activity at the show included:

1. 1394 had a booth with a demonstration of a "Home Network" using both POF and Cat 5.

2. Fuji Film had a demonstration of a POF DVI link using graded index POF over 30 meters. It was in the Pioneer Corp. booth and used Pioneer plasma displays and electronics to interconnect.

In summary, this is the right show for POF. POFTO should have had some POF courses to offer. Certainly, they should be proposed to CEDIA for 2005. As in other shows, there was a widespread lack of knowledge about POF.

POF Tackles Automotive Requirements
posted: May 11, 2004

A featured article by Dr. Tami Freeman,
Deputy Editor FibreSystems Europe
In association with LIGHTWAVE Europe

Car makers looking to implement in-vehicle plastic fibre networks require high-bandwidth links, low costs and complete reliability, especially as they begin to exploit this optical infrastructure for safety-critical applications. Tami Freeman takes a look at some of the latest developments in the world of wired-up cars.
Read the Full Article

POFTO Mission Statement

The POFTO is an organization that has been established to promote the common business interests of its members and the POF industry. POFTO is an alternative to glass optical fiber that has been specifically designed to be a practical, low cost solution for high bandwidth data communications. The POFTO welcomes those whose interest and support can contribute to the success of this endeavor.

Primary Goals

• Promote industry awareness, acceptance and advancement of POF Accelerate the adoption and usage of POF products and services Encourage the application of POF and component systems.
• Promote the advancement and acceptance of POF standards

Some Benefits of Membership